The Girl, the Mop, And The Pizza That Got Away
by John Bethany
Summary: J.D awakes one day to discover he has no recollection of the night before. Could it have something to do with a certain mysterious girl? Or could it have something to do with an even more mysterious pizza?...first attempt at something not overtly violent,
1. Why Mondays Suck

The morning sun fell out of its bed of clouds and onto the cold floor that was the early sky. It stretched its arms out and inadvertently lit up the earth with bright light. The daylight crept on down into the homes and buildings of the city centre with silent joy. The same couldn't be said for those on their way to Sacred Heart Hospital.

The Monday morning shift pulled with it the remains of interns long hung-over from too much partying on a particular Sunday evening. They dragged their feet, like their own hangdog expressions, across the recently cleaned floor. Doctor Kelso stood in reception glowering over the flowing river of young doctors. Certain people thought he would suit a pointy black hat and green skin, and have the most terrible aversion to water; certain people like J.D.

J.D was not usually the one to stand out from the wrecked crowd of young doctors somehow managing to find their way into Sacred Heart, and today was no different. His head swung around the corner like a pendulum and gradually slid inside with all the other lifeless shells known as interns.

His head was spinning (and not because he decided to jump off his scooter and chase that squirrel on the drive over). J.D's groggy steps slipped over the shiny floor and into each other. He stumbled, yet casually (well, as casually as possible in such a situation) pulled himself up and proceeded to perform a smooth Fonzie-style comb of the hair, just to confirm his total control over the fall.

What J.D failed to realise was the piece of day-old pizza still clung to the back of his head. In his attempt to look cool, his hand had smeared the crusty cheese all over the back of his head. It was just dumb luck that everyone else was too hung-over to notice.

It took a while for J.D to register his action. He drew out a good minute to scutinize the slimy slab of Italian food on his hand, and then to peel off the pizza from the back of his head. He quickly shimmied to the side to avoid blocking up the reception and examined what was he held.

The first thing to strike him was the fact he had just removed a hunk of pizza from the back of his head. _That scooter helmet must be tighter than I thought, _babbled J.D inside his head; _I wonder how it got there in the first place? _Then he remembered something.

The most minute snippet of memory inched into his brain. He and Turk had gone out last night. Doing what: he didn't know. Doing it where: he didn't know that either. For what occasion: it didn't seem to be that important at the time. All J.D had to go on was that he came back to his apartment from somewhere and needed to know what went down.

_The thing is, _J.D often speculated, _you can always tell how good a night was by the new scars left on you in the morning. The problem is that you can never remember on your own how good the night was, (this is usually due to consuming your own weight in peanuts and alcohol and will end up with you not having the ability to see when daylight finally arises the next morning). Why should we base how much enjoyment we've had on how much it kills us? Do we need the pain to counteract the pleasure? Or is life just really unfair?_

As J.D stood there, deep in thought, pizza in hand and slightly on back of head, it never occurred to him to wash what was left of tomato/cheese/mould hybrid from the back of his head. He simply slipped the remains of the pizza into the bin, wiped his greasy hand on his pants and continued into the hospital. As he turned inwards to the main corridor, the pizza had managed to become precariously perched on the rim of the bin. It teetered from one side to the next, like some gooey seesaw. Catching the faint breeze from a passing intern the pizza lost its balance and hurtled toward the floor. It connected to the floor with a doughy, and quite revolting, splat.

Deep within the bowels of Sacred Heart, a figure stopped mid-action and uncontrollably shivered. Like a well-trained bloodhound, the Janitor pricked up his ears and narrowed his eyes into a menacing scowl.

"Someone, somewhere, has misplaced Italian food. And I think I have a good idea who it is…" He grabbed his mop from its convenient dull grey bucket and thrust it under his arm like a sergeant's baton. "Only Scotland Yards' finest can crack the case!" he announced in a regal British accent, before parading around the corridor, suspiciously eyeing up the passers-by.

"Hey Bambi," came the cooing maternal tones of Carla from over the nurses desk, "You don't look so hot. You okay?"

"No Carla, not really," whined J.D, "Is Turk around? I need to ask him something…"

Before J.D would get an answer, Carla yanked a hold of his collar and brought him in face to face. Fury bubbled in her eyes and she hollered at him, "Whatever you did to my poor baby, I want to hear it now!" J.D cowered at Carla's fuming rage, yet just as quickly as she had sprang up, she subsided saying, "'Cause I really enjoy the peace and quiet."

J.D looked about, puzzled.

"Did that just happen?"

"M-hmm" came Laverne from behind the desk, "She ain't bin used to having her man so hung-over he can't string two thoughts together, never mind two words."

"Listen Laverne, I know what kind of stuff Turk talks about." J.D took a second to remember their debate on whether chilli-cheese fries were their own food-group, and their discussion about the possible injuries from Women's Pro Jelly wrestling. I don't think that Carla could have any real lasting effect on his conversational skills…" _Or could she…?_

Again, the door to J.D's memory creaked open and let a little chink of light to flash through. Turk didn't come home with him, although Turk was in his room when J.D managed to fight himself awake from the sofa.

_I never was any good at jigsaw puzzles_,thought J.D, s_o having to piece together a picture with flashes of memory that look like a pre-school art gallery doesn't seem all that fair. Damn tequila; one day I shall conquer more than seven shots of you and still retain my short-term memory!_

As J.D stood there, sitting in first class on his train of thought, time fluttered by like a swarm of frantic and jittery butterflies. When he finally realised his lack of movement (and the sudden jump forward in time by ten minutes) he remembered why he came up: rounds. He collected his things and ran off down the corridors, head full of unanswered thoughts (not to mention remains of an Italian takeaway).

Back down in the reception, the Janitor approached the bin that J.D had left the guilty pizza in (or near enough). He picked up the pizza with the end of his mop and examined it like a kitten examines a ball of wool. His eyes scanned the surface of the offending food product and he began to draw up his ideas and presumptions.

"Hmmmm," he pondered, "This pizza's topping has been disturbed, and guessing from the amount of hair on it…" he plucked some of J.D's hair from the pizza, "It has been attached to someone's head for about…" he took a deep whiff of the pizza and then put some of the hair in his mouth. His eyes helped aid his deduction of the hair in his mouth by fleeting around in his head. The Janitor spat out the hair and came to a conclusion; "The culprit has had this slice of Italian delicacy stuck to their head for the duration of the previous night. Now to find someone with pizza cheese on his or her head…" he removed a plastic wallet from his pocket and placed the pizza inside it. On it was already scrawled "Exhibit A" in crayon.

"You know," came a chirpy voice from behind him, "If you hadn't put the hair in your mouth, you could have sent it to the lab for testing." The Janitor turned around and looked down; inside his head he had the words, "Why don't you shut up?" repeating on a continuous loop. That was what he was going to say, until he realised who it was.

Elliot looked at the mouldy chunk of pizza in the plastic wallet and gave a discerning look at it, "Urgh, wouldn't want to touch that. Except that one time where I got locked in my high school cafeteria and had to live off month old potatoes and use gravy as mascara so that the stale fish sticks wouldn't laugh at me. But what do they know? They're just processed junk food sold to fat kids." She eventually returned to the point at hand and gave the janitor a cheeky smile. He stood there feeling quite sheepish, even after she had left with that quaint skip in her step.

As she left the reception area, the Janitor felt that numbing feeling all over and let go of the pizza-wallet. Just as you would expect, a travelling doctor stood on it and smushed it over the floor.

"Ooo, you should clean that up" the doctor noted and continued walking off, a footprint of pizza marking his journey. The Janitor was vexed and turned to face the doctor, but didn't get a good look at his face. He grumbled and put the pizza in the bin, as he mopped up the mess of the pizza he murmured to himself, "Looks like another name for the hit-list"

From a small pocket he removed a piece of paper that read "My enemies". The only other thing on the paper was "The Jerk that I don't like". Under it he wrote with a stumpy pencil, "The Jerk who stood on the pizza". He forced the pencil and paper back into his pocket and whistled a merry tune as he plotted his vengeance.


	2. MidMorning Worries

The pale-faced walls of Sacred Heart hospital looked morbidly depressed, and made all those passing through them the same. Bodies drifted around the halls of the wards; both alive and deceased, yet with the same will to get to their destination. How anyone could work in these conditions was unbelievable, yet by some strange wonder, they did.

J.D leaned cautiously around the corner. He knew he was late for rounds, and could blatantly see the other, more fragile, interns hung on Dr Kelso's every word. They had collected themselves around the feet of Mrs Gorman and vacantly stared into her face like soulless guppy fish. J.D stood there pondering to himself casually, as he often did, when Elliot materialised behind him.

"Hey J.D," she chirruped, "Are we late for rounds again?" J.D revolved his head and addressed her, "Yup."

"Frick it!" she splurted.

"Chill out, E" J.D said smoothly, "All we have to do is wait till Doug gets asked a question and then we just slide our way to the back of the crowd and look very interested. Okay?" Elliot vigorously nodded her head and then snapped her focus to the group of doctors. Then the magic words drifted out of Kelso's mouth…

"Doctor Murphy, what do you make of Mrs Gorman's condition?"

Doug froze in fear, each muscle in his body tightened with considerable terror as the possibilities of wrong answers flushed into his mind. First he thought of oranges, then apples to keep the oranges company, then of trees, then of Yogi Bear and his snazzy fashion sense. All these thoughts scrambled up in his brain, and then out his mouth Doug mumbled in a quite confused manner, "Or…a…y…fleh?"

"Quick!" J.D signalled to Elliot, "He's said 'Fleh' let's go!"

The two doctors charged full pelt down the small space that separated them from the rest of the interns. Several other doctors crossing the path of Elliot and J.D were floored as the two doctors flung themselves into the crowd of interns. Medical gear scattered into the air like sterilised rain and fell all about the dazed doctors. They brushed off the equipment, yet as the dank smell of Doug's sweat carried itself into their nostrils, a stern figure manoeuvred into their path.

"Mornin' there Barbie, and looky here it's Barbie's new playmate, Krissy."

The two doctors froze instantaneously. Doctor Cox stood with his sinewy arms neatly woven around one another. His face beamed a malevolent grin that meant one thing to J.D, 'Oh crap'.

"Aaaaand just where do ya think you're off to, eh?" Cox chewed at them. J.D and Elliot slowly sank into the floor as Dr Cox began berating them for once again no reason; all the while J.D retreated to his 'happy place'.

J.D had always thought in time of need, the Fonz from 'Happy Days' would come to his rescue, just like as if out of nowhere. He would saddle up beside him and in that cool way that he did, and stand up for what was right, and if that involved many pretty women, then he would go beyond the call of duty to ensure their safety. Damn reality.

"Fonzie, where are you when I need you?" he mumbled to himself.

"Excuse me Sheila, but I'm not quite done here!" remarked Dr Cox and he whistled sharply, so sharply in fact, that it felt like vigorously cleaning your ears with a brillo pad. "Why don't you little girl scouts skip on down to the ICU and check out Ms Reynolds for me, would ya?" he pushed his clipboard into J.D and barged past him, almost flooring him.

Just as Dr Cox had nearly made it around the corner, Dr Kelso decided to strike, like a balding cobra.

"Perry!" he sarcastically beamed, "I've got a little job for you…"

"No can do Bob-o," huffed Dr Cox, "I'm too busy trying to avoid your sinful look, and by gosh, I'm sure I can feel it burning a bald patch similar to yours on the back of my head. And really, I seriously don't have the time to become one of your sadistic, Bob-esque minions at the mo, but be sure to offer me again later just so I can see your wrinkly old face just smush together when I tell you, you can stick it up your ass."

Kelso paced over towards Dr Cox. _Oh God I can't bare to watch!_ Thought J.D, _But then again…_ He imagined it like some sort of wildlife documentary, with the noble, yet horrifically short-tempered _Perriclus Coxatus_ squaring off against the fearsome and masterful _Boborous Kelsonorati_ in the stinking heat of the Sacred Heart Mountains. Only here, can such species be found, and frequently do they meet, but never this close.

"Fine"

_What?_

"What?"

"I said that's fine Perry. Doesn't matter." And then he strolled off, the herd of Interns following close by. Cox took one last fleeting look at the disappearing Kelso, then walked off, confused.

J.D and Elliot ambled down to the ICU, having a check over Ms Reynolds' charts. On the way, J.D explained to Elliot of his mysterious night, and the pizza.

"Jeez, and I thought I had bad nights out. Especially that time I was with those frat boys, and they said that they'd get us free beer if we didn't wear shirts and…well…you know the rest." Elliot kept quiet for a minute as she remembered that fateful night, "So many 'Hooters' jokes…" she whispered to herself, "Anyway, give me back Ms Reynolds charts." She browsed over the board with quick efficiency.

"She seems fine to me," said Elliot, perplexed.

"Let me have a look," asked J.D as he prised the clipboard from Elliot's hands. As he surveyed the notes and information, they reached her room.

"You know what Elliot," he began, "I have to agree with you here, Ms Reynolds is…" he looked up from the board to see Ms Reynolds sitting up in her bed. Her hair flowed like a cascade of subtle browns over her shoulders, her face was full of life, her lips begged to be kissed, and J.D stood dumbfounded, "…Damn fine."

Elliot circled in on Ms Reynolds, trying to hide the fact that she didn't know why she was there.

"S-So…Ms Reynolds," Elliot struggled to start, "How are you today?"

"Well," her whole body ran in fluid motion with her speech, every word made her body formulate a gesture to accompany it, "My whole body hurts, it's like I've had a really bad night out and can't remember a damn thing about it."

Elliot cracked a little smile to herself, "You know, Dr Dorian over there is our resident expert in that field, I'm sure he could help you out." She made an obvious wink to him and slinked out the room.

J.D stood frightened in the presence of this beautiful woman. _Come on dammit! You're a man. Just go up to her and say something comforting, charming, supportive, funny, or relaxing. Wait a second…I don't know how to say anything like that!_ Ms Reynolds sat and stared at J.D, growing silently impatient of his childish silence._ Holy Crap, she's expecting me to say something…just go for it!_

"I'll be back in five." And in a single swift movement, he was gone.

J.D stood groggily against the nurses' desk, why was he so scared of this woman? She was hot! Then it gradually dawned on J.D, hot women scare him easily. Whenever he had tried to fantasize about hot women, he would always be either let down by his own imagination, or they would rebel and start wearing clothes.

But this one was different. He came to realise that he knew her, and she knew him. And it was no coincidence that they both had rough nights. She had some part to play in his night, and sooner or later, he would figure it out. The best course of action was to avoid Dr Cox so he won't have to send Ms Reynolds out the hospital and then leave J.D not finding out what happened last night.

J.D picked himself up, filled with purpose. He turned around and went straight into the Janitor.

"Watch it buddy," the Janitor grumbled.

J.D pleaded, "Oh man, please don't do anything today. I've been having a rough time recently and…"

The Janitor raised his hand to silence J.D, "Hey, I've got bigger fish to fry today."

"What…so we're cool?"

"Only for today. Some irresponsible guy is running around the hospital with Italian food smeared on his foot. Just to spite me," The Janitor wiped a tear from his eye, "It's a cruel world."

"Oh cheer up, it'll be okay." J.D put his hands around the Janitor in an attempt to hug him.

The Janitor shot up. "Who said you could touch me?"

"I'm sorry, I just thought…"

"Well don't. I've got my eye on you…Scooter!" He gestured from his eye to J.D as he backed away down the corridor, straight into a pizza stain. "The game is afoot!" the Janitor cried and he galloped off down the hallway in search of his mystery culprit.


End file.
